LMF+Analysis

I had a difficult time coming up with intuitive predictions regarding learning, motivation and fun. This might be due to a character flaw in that I am rather self-centered. Curiosity and self interest are what usually motivate me to learn. I also have a "need to know things" to feed my self perception. Without much preconception on others' motivation for learning, I watched some videos to get an inkling of what motivates others.

1) Humor doesn't seem to be that critical to a memorable fun learning experience. The use of humor by the instructor was listed as "a lot" by relatively few people, only 43 out of 165 listings -- about 25%. This was quite surprising to me since I think of humor as a major component of fun. I would have expected humor to be one of the characteristics that make a learning event memorable (not necessarily more effective, just more likely to make a past experience stand out). An even lower proportion of the videos, e.g. Sam in Philosophy class, seemed to mention a funny teacher. One notable exception is Justin where it was directly applicable to his comedic acting. I'm not a classroom teacher, due in part to discomfort in front of crowds. It is nice to know that I do not have to worry much about being funny (though I probably will worry, it's my nature) if I do find myself presenting in front of an audience. Now I'm wondering if an instructor's use of humor might interfere with the //effectiveness// of the lesson. . . . see, I told you it was my nature to worry!

2) What is useful for motivation when the human interest aspect is low? This caught my eye since I tutor math which seems to be as low in direct human interest as possible. I wondered what would be a common theme in making learning //things// or //ideas// fun. There were 82 people that rated the fun experience as low in human interest. My first guess was high levels of humor being necessary to compensate for dry material. This was definitely not the case, only 19 of the 82 cited "lots" of humor. Fantasy and role playing didn't seem to play a major role either, 63 of the 82 rated that aspect as "low". Enthusiasm of the instructor apparently correlates more, as 51 rated this characteristic as "high". Chris, who was struggling in a high school Geometry class, had an enthusiastic teacher that motivated him by suggesting that he play "detective" when solving problems. This is quite an interesting instructional approach. I'm assuming that the teacher's enthusiasm played a big part in Chris accepting the role playing suggestion, rather than it being blown off as a lame way of overcoming frustration. It was certainly memorable and effective, Chris uses the technique with his own students.

3) High number of people that mentioned feedback in their videos. Feedback seemed to be spontaneously mentioned or implied quite often in the interviews. Joanne mentioned positive reinforcement in her creative music program. Gina talked about a map in the classroom to track progress. Manny liked how the Wii tracked his progress in doing yoga poses. Denise's SAT vocabulary prep game provided instant feedback, you had to sit down if you got it wrong. There was no way to search the database for feedback, however I guess that it makes the experience more effective and memorable. Maybe the level of feedback could be added to the database for further investigation?

4) Importance of relevance to past experience/future goals for academic content This seems to be pretty intuitive. Of the 66 academic content entries, 37 cited it as "very" relevant and an additional 15 categorized their experience as "some"what relevant. The implication here for instructional design is that relevance should be explicitly addressed in academic lessons.

5) For academic content (66 out of the 165 total entries), what is the optimal environment in terms of //attention// and //control//? My career objective is to develop products that enhance the learners understanding of mathematical concepts. Along that line I was interested in the breakdown of //attention// and //control// between the instructor and the learner. This analysis isn't solid enough to draw conclusions, but I think it does give me some insights into further contemplation. Something I found rather surprising, and maybe a little disconcerting, almost half (30 of 66) spent only 20% of their attention inward, and another 10 (about 15%) stated they spent no time looking inward. I'm not sure what to take away from this. Is reflection not a requirement for a fun academic experience? I still think that encouraging reflection will make a lesson more effective, and I would hope it has a positive effect on the learners enjoyment. There was a similar result in //control// of the pace and content by student, where half the students reported very little (20%) or no control at all. This I find encouraging, that students can find academic content fun even though they do not feel in control of the pace or content.